Ursula Handleigh

An object to be both looked at and looked through, an apparatus that explores loss and practices of looking. Photographs have the ability to be both moving and still, simultaneously expansive and constrictive in its imagery. Fabricated using components from a deconstructed enlarger, an apparatus that sustains the photograph as object, a tool used to record the ephemeral moment, to obscure reality, to hold onto an uncertain truth. AnApparatus for Longing is an attempt to capture an ephemeral moment in its truest sense, to document duration, fleeting moments, always in a process of response, always failing in its attempt to preserve. Appearing solid in form but continually changing in composition, the image is never fixed, but always in a state of movement, constantly responding to its surroundings, it becomes about the act of looking, the act of searching.
[Text: Ursula Handleigh; Photos: Steve Farmer]

Ursula Handleigh is an interdisciplinary artist working with experimental photography, film and alternative processes of image making. Her practice explores questions of identity, perception, memory, and kinship. Using experiential photography and the personal archive as a foundation for exploration, her work addresses the ways in which we create personal histories while challenging traditional methods of documentation.
[Photos: Katherine Nakaska]

“I choose a material to accompany my thoughts and I start a kind of dialogue, I initiate an action and the material responds, and I start to build from there. I enjoy this state of being attentive and like to watch the process develop.” >> The Interview